


Written in Skin

by wilddragonflying



Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:03:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1502921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilddragonflying/pseuds/wilddragonflying
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In worlds where your soulmate's name is written in your skin, it's not always hard to find that perfect person. Doesn't mean the rest of it's easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, these chapters aren't necessarily in the same universe(although I, personally, am absolutely DYING for a Teen Wolf/Supernatural crossover. Seriously.), but that may change later? idk, this started out as just two scenes, but that may change later on, if I get more ideas.
> 
> Anyway, so the whole soulmates trope is done A LOT, but I can't get enough of it, so here's my contribution!

Derek couldn't read the name written on his wrist.

Well, he could read the last name easily enough--  _Stilinski_ \-- but the first? Yeah, no way was that happening.

When his parents told him that the Stilinskis had had a child, a boy with a funny first name that didn't sound like what Derek imagined the name on his wrist should sound like, Derek remembered being a bit confused. Soulmates were supposed to be a boy and a girl, right?

Wrong, apparently. 

Still, that didn't keep him from making the mistake of fooling around with Kate Argent; even though he knew she was the wrong person for him, something told him that, deep inside. She didn't tell him that her name was Kate Argent, though. She told him that she was a distant relative of the Stilinskis', and her name sounded genuine enough.

Too bad she wasn't.

***

Stiles remembers when he first heard that Derek Hale-- the same name written on the inside of his wrist in an icy blue script that used to be golden (and  _that_ was unusual, for the color of the script to change)-- had messed around with an older woman, and then his family ended up dead. He remembers being so confused, and more than a little hurt. Weren't they soulmates? Weren't they supposed to be together?

He remembers shoving it aside in favor of worrying about his mom, and brushing off the questions that inevitably came when people noticed the moderately tight leather cuff he wore around his right wrist. He remembers telling them that he needed to focus on his mom, not some person he hadn't met yet.

He got his mother's name tattooed on his left wrist after she died, for his sixteenth birthday, and that name he wore proudly, even if it made his dad a little teary-eyed for the first several months after he got the tattoo.

***

The first time Derek sees Stiles, the first thing he notices is the leather cuff over the teenager's right wrist-- a clear giveaway that he's hiding the name of his soulmate. Derek can understand; he's got a matching cuff over his own right wrist. But Derek doesn't pry, not until well after Beacon Hills finally quiets down a little after the Nogitsune is dealt with.

He and Stiles are in Stiles's room, watching Disney movies (Stiles needed something innocent, something distracting, and Derek missed the movies he grew up with), when Derek finally brings it up. "Why are you hiding it?" he asks quietly when Stiles climbs back into the bed after a bathroom break, before he starts the movie again.

Stiles startles, looking at Derek cautiously. "Hiding what?"

"The name."

Stiles is quiet for a moment, but it's a considering quiet, not a conniving one; one that tells Derek that Stiles is schooling his thoughts, not thinking of a plausible cover-up. "I figured it was one of the mistakes," Stiles finally admits, his voice soft. 

Derek sucks in a breath. Mistakes were rare-- exceedingly so. He can't imagine a genuine mistake, even after the one he made. "You saw them with another person?"

Stiles looks at Derek, studying him, for so long that Derek starts to get a little worried. Eventually, though, Stiles says, "I never saw him with my own eyes, but I always figured that was what happened. I mean, why else would someone get involved with another person, if their name wasn't written?"

Derek hesitates before pressing gently, "Who was he?"

"Is," Stiles corrects softly. And then he's reaching for the buckle on the cuff, and tugging it loose; it resists enough that Derek's confident in assuming it hasn't been removed since it was put on. The teenager's heartbeat picks up as he turns his wrist to face Derek, and Derek's momentarily blinded by the simple fact that Stiles  _trusts_ him enough to show him this.

Then he realizes he's looking at his own name, scrawled across the inside of Stiles's wrist in ice, and he looks up at Stiles in shock.

"It started out gold," Stiles says, not making eye contact with Derek. "Then it turned blue. Red, when you killed Peter. Went back to blue after you saved Cora."

"Stiles-- " Derek chokes on his words; what can he say, that Stiles was right to hide the name, because it sure isn't  _Stiles Stilinski_ that's written on Derek's wrist. Still, he undoes his own cuff, showing Stiles the black characters written in his own skin. "I've never been able to read it," he confesses, and finds he can't look Stiles in the eye now. "I thought-- With Kate, she said she was a relative of yours. Said her name in a way that sounded like it should."

Stiles sounds like he's choking, making these little wounded noises before he manages to say, "It's Polish. Sounds nothing like it looks, I promise you. Why do you think I chose the nickname 'Stiles'?"

Derek's gaze snaps up, meets Stiles's, and he can't help but respond to the tentative smile on the teenager's-- his  _soulmate's_ \-- face. "So it's not a mistake, then," he says quietly.

Stiles shakes his head. "No, it's not," he agrees, and now he sounds like he's on the verge of hysterical laughter. "Not at all."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eurgh writer's block. x.x This didn't come out exactly like I first imagined, but I didn't want to go for the lovers angle on this one(even though i'm a wincest shipper). So I hope this is still good!

Dean remembers whispered conversations, when his mom was pregnant. Something about how he didn't have some name written on his arm, like Mom and Dad did. He remembers them worrying that it meant he'd be alone, which just confused him-- He had them, and he was gonna have a baby brother or sister soon, he wasn't going to be alone.

Then, he remembers his wrist itching like crazy when he was being babysat by Mrs. Wiggins, the old lady next door, while his mom had the baby. When he looked, he actually got to watch the name be written on his wrist--  _Samuel Winchester_. It was pretty cool, if he did say so himself.

There were more conversations after that, but Dean was too busy playing with Sammy, and watching over him, to care.

After the fire, there were very few conversations.

***

The next one was when he was ten, and it was just Dad telling him that him and Sam, they were closer than the average brothers. Two of the lucky ones; they were soulmates. Meant they'd be great hunters, when they grew up. But for now, it meant that he had to watch over Sam, keep Sam safe.

***

When he and Sam were twenty-two and eighteen, it wasn't enough to keep Sam with Dean, wasn't enough to get Dean to leave Dad on his own, hunting the thing that killed Mom.

***

When Sam was stabbed, it was enough to get Dean to sell his soul.

***

When Dean went to Hell, it was enough to set Sam on Lillith's trail.

***

When it was Sam's turn, it was the promise Dean had made to his soulmate that sent him to Lisa, a woman whose soulmate had died, and whose kid needed a father figure.

***

When Sam came back soulless, Dean's soul couldn't handle it; he got Death to bring Sam's soul back.

***

When Dean got blasted into Purgatory, it was the knowledge that nothing had ever escaped Purgatory from the inside, and that Sam didn't have the juice for an outside attempt that sent Sam into another woman's arms, one of which was labeled with what she claimed was a mistake.

***

When Sam was ready to shut the gates of Hell and damn himself in the process, the names written on his and Dean's wrists were enough to bring him back from the brink.

***

It was that name, staring at Dean while Sam lay in that hospital bed, that drove Dean to accept help from an unknown angel.

**

It was the source of the current argument echoing through the halls of the bunker.

 

"Dammit, Dean, I know we're soulmates, but that doesn't mean you get to make those sorts of calls for me!" Sam cried, exasperated. "I was  _ready to die_ , for Christ's sake!"

"And I wasn't ready for you to do that," Dean snapped back, glaring at his brother. 

"That doesn't mean you get a fucking  _angel_ to possess me, and then _trick_ me into agreeing to it," Sam snarled. 

"Well what was I supposed to do? Let you die?"

"Exactly!"

Dean stared at Sam, his expression disbelieving, but Sam refused to back down. "Dean, we're soulmates. I get that it's important to you, and believe me, it's important to me, too, but being soulmates doesn't mean we keep cheating death," he sighed. "It doesn't mean that we keep pulling these stunts, trying to save each other and the world."

Dean's hand clenched, the Mark of Cain burning on his skin. Sam's eyes tracked the movement, and his gaze softened. "You took that mark to kill Abbadon. You took it after I told you I wouldn't do the same thing as you did. And I wouldn't, Dean. If you really wanted it over, wanted to die, wanted it to be the last time, I wouldn't get in the way of that."

Dean flinched, looking away, his throat working. "And what's the Mark got to do with that?" he asked tensely.

Sam stepped into Dean's line of sight. "You're throwing yourself away. And I can't watch that. You're doing what I did, when you went to Hell."

That gets Dean to look up. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't you see? Ruby, Crowley; demon blood, the Mark; it's the same thing all over again," Sam explained gently. "You need something to ground you, Dean."

"And what do you suggest?" Dean snapped, glaring at Sam even though it seemed to not have any effect.

"Let me ground you, please." Sam looked at Dean imploringly. "I'm not saying that this will all be perfect right away; we're going to have to work for it. But I won't--  _can't_ \-- watch you do the same thing I did. It nearly lead to the Apocalypse, and it lead to me in the Pit. Neither one of us wants to go through that again."

"Abbadon needs to die," Dean said, but it was just a touch less sure than it used to be, and Sam didn't miss that.

"Yes, she does; I'm not disagreeing," Sam said, cautiously reaching out to put his hands on Dean's shoulders. When Dean didn't immediately shake him off, Sam let himself hope that maybe they could fix this after all.

"Then what are you doing?" Dean asked.

"I'm saying..." Sam hesitated for a second, searching for the right words. "I'm saying that we need to do this together. That we need to do this like soulmates  _and_ brothers. Which means you don't go sneaking off to talk to Crowley alone, and you quit treating me like I'm some sort of traitor, or... Or freak." It almost hurts Sam to say that word, but he needs to, he knows. He's not going to get through to Dean by pussyfooting around. "And I don't let you go off and do stupid shit without talking to someone and making sure it's not going to come back and bite us in the ass."

Dean watched Sam warily. "What happened to just being partners, not brothers? What happened to everything bad happening because we keep putting family first?" he asked finally.

Sam sighed. "Look what happened when we  _didn't_ put family first," he pointed out, his gaze flicking down to the Mark. "Please, Dean."

Eventually, Dean nodded.

***

When Abbadon's head was rolling across the ground, joining the heads of her followers that had followed her into this suicide mission, it was the name written across Dean's skin that brought him from the fog, that kept him from succumbing to the bloodlust thrumming through his veins.

Dean gave the blade to Crowley, told him to keep it on his moon. Then he and Sam went home.


End file.
